


Interlude

by etonnant67



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Fluff, M/M, idolverse, pre-NBTM promo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etonnant67/pseuds/etonnant67
Summary: Somewhere in this mess and tangle of half a lifetime, Jinyoung had fallen in love with Jaebeom. And somehow, Jaebeom had looked at him with every last bit of trust in his eyes and loved Jinyoung back......Jaebeom finally invites Jinyoung over.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Comments: 15
Kudos: 232





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> I'm procrastinating on school and I'm also struggling with a longer JJP fic so I decided to try to write something short as a creative exercise. And I mostly just wanted to try to come up with an explanation for all of the TOUCHINESS during the NBTM promotions.

“I’m in the lobby.”

“Ah, alright.” His voice has frayed since the two of them had parted ways at dance practice earlier that evening. It’s smoothed over now, gone hazy in the late night. “I’ll buzz you up.”

There’s a click and the glass doors slide open, letting Jinyoung into the atrium. It’s late--probably past 11:30 now--but the security guard is still seated at the desk. He nods at Jinyoung when he walks up.

“Good evening,” he says, his voice gruff. He eyes Jinyoung suspiciously. “Visiting someone?” 

Jinyoung nods at him. “Lim Jaebeom. On the ninth floor. He just buzzed me in.”

The security guard raises his eyebrows at him and then picks up the old-fashioned phone from where it's perched on his desk.

“Name?”

“Park Jinyoung.”

“I have to call to verify,” the guard says. “One moment, please.” Jinyoung watches as he dials the apartment number. This apartment complex is understated but exclusive. With its high ceilings and brightly decorated lobby, It’s a little fancier than Jinyoung would have expected from Jaebeom but he doesn’t blame him for wanting the extra security. 

“Yes, Jaebeom-ssi there’s someone here for you? Park Jinyoung?” The guard says into the phone. “Yes. Yes. Just wanted to confirm. I’ll let him up now.” He hangs up and then smiles at Jinyoung, the icy suspicion on his face thawing out. “I’ll let you up. Just step over to the elevators.”

Jinyoung returns his smile and heads down the marble tiled hall to the elevator doors. There’s a _ding_ as the security guard presses the elevator call button and the first set of doors slide open. 

“Just hit the button for the ninth floor,” the guard calls out to him. “Have a nice visit.”

Jinyoung bows in his direction and gets on. He does as he’s told and the doors slide shut. He takes a deep breath and pulls his hood down over his head. It’s only Tuesday but he’s exhausted. Between filming the drama and all day rehearsals for next month’s comeback, it feels like forever since he’s had any time to himself. Tonight is the first time in weeks that Jinyoung has had a night to himself. Part of him wants nothing more than to be at home in his own apartment, cocooned under his sheets, fast asleep.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open. 

But most of him would rather be here.

He finds Jaebeom’s door easily. Knocking is the hard part. Jinyoung does it anyway. He can make out the quiet sound of shuffling behind the door and then three aborted meows before the front door opens.

“You’re here,” Jaebeom says, with a soft smile. He doesn’t open the door all the way, but just pokes his head through the slight opening. He’s wearing his glasses, the square ones with the clear frames that Jinyoung has always liked, and his long hair is down, grazing at his shoulders. There’s another chorus of meows. “One second, my cats are trying to escape.” 

The door closes again and Jinyoung can make out the sound of Jaebeom shooing them away. The door opens again, this time all the way. 

“Sorry about that,” Jaebeom says. He tucks a lock of hair behind his left ear. “Cats.”

Jinyoung can’t help but smile at him. “So I heard.”

“Come in, then.” Jaebeom steps out of the way. “It’d be weird if you came all the way over here to just stand in the doorway.”

“It’d be more of your apartment than I’d seen before.” Jinyoung joins Jaebeom in the foyer. 

“Now you can see the whole thing,” Jaebeom says as he shuts the door behind him. 

“Lucky me.” Jinyoung toes off his sneakers.

“Or maybe lucky _me_.” Jaebeom grins at him, his face crinkling upwards. He holds his arms open for Jinyoung. Jinyoung smiles back at him and walks into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Jaebeom’s middle and fisting his hands in the weave of Jaebeom’s sweater. He buries his face in the crook of Jaebeom’s neck. Jaebeom is solid and warm and he smells the same as always--like cologne cut through with the sharp clean scent of soap.

“Missed you, Jinyoungie,” Jaebeom murmurs.

“We just saw each other at dance rehearsal,” Jinyoung says, teasing. But he knows what Jaebeom means. “Missed you too, Jaebeommie,” he whispers back. “I always miss you. But maybe you should have invited me over earlier,” Jinyoung says, only half teasing. “Or maybe, I don’t know? Called me?”

“Calling is hard.” Jaebeom lets him go and turns away, heading down the short hall. 

“Texting exists too!” Jinyoung follows him into the next room. It’s an open plan living room and kitchen. The lights are all off in the kitchen and Jaebeom turns into the living room. There’s only one lamp on, the low light letting Seoul’s late night glow bleed in through the floor to ceiling windows and wash the room in diffuse light. The rest of the room is more put together than Jinyoung would have expected. There’s a squashy gray couch dividing the room in half, a black cat perched on its arm, purring quietly. A long wooden coffee table is arranged in front, where Jaebeom has left a book open facedown, its spine worn. A TV is mounted on the wall across from the sofa and there are bookshelves all around, crammed with paperbacks. Behind the sofa is an old-fashioned stereo console with a record player on top. Jaebeom has music playing, soft RnB pumping in through the speakers.

“It’s really nice,” Jinyoung says. He sits down on the couch, sighing when the cushions sink around him. The cat opens its eyes and stares at him judgmentally before yawning and jumping off to wind itself between Jaebeom’s legs.

Jaebeom laughs and bends down to pick up the cat, placing it on his right shoulder. “Were you expecting it to be bad?”

“No,” Jinyoung says. He raises one eyebrow and watches the way that the cat rubs its face against Jaebeom’s cheek. “But you were being so cagey about inviting me over that I thought that, maybe, you were embarrassed by it.”

Jaebeom narrows his eyes at him and frowns. Jinyoung bursts out laughing. “I’m teasing you, hyung.” 

Jaebeom rolls his eyes at Jinyoung but smiles anyways, his grin small and quiet. He sits down next to Jinyoung. Annoyed by all the movement, the cat hops off of his shoulder and reclaims its space on the sofa’s arm.

“Do you want anything?” Jaebeom asks him, his voice wavering with something that Jinyoung has learned is uncertainty. He reaches over to scratch the cat between its ears. “I can make tea and I have beer and soju and stuff, if you’d rather have that.”

Jinyoung hums and then nods. “Tea, I guess. It’s so late and I feel like if I drink now, I’ll wake up groggy.”

Jaebeom nods and gets back up. “Barley tea, ok?”

“Always.”

Jaebeom goes into the kitchen and out of sight. Jinyoung leans forward and picks up the book from where Jaebeom left it open. He smiles at notes Jaebeom’s left scribbled in the margins, his handwriting as blocky and rushed as always. He squints at them, trying to make out the words.

“Do you want to borrow that when I’m done?” Jaebeom places two steaming cups of tea on the coffee table. “It’s pretty good--I like it more than I thought I would.”

Jinyoung flips to the front, reading the title.

“ _A Tale for the Time Being_? What’s it about?”

“It’s by an American author,” Jaebeom says sitting back down next to him. “It’s . . . about a lot of things but mostly about life and fear and loss and Buddhism? You’d like it, I think.”

Jinyoung looks at the three exclamation points that Jaebeom inked in the left hand corner of the open page. They shout at him, like they’re trying to draw him in. Jinyoung smiles and folds the page corner over, closing the book and setting it back down. “Yeah,” he says. He picks up his tea, blowing over the steam. “I think I’d like to read it next.”

Jaebeom takes up his own tea, taking a sip. Jinyoung can see the smile that he’s hiding behind the lip. Jinyoung feels lucky that he gets this. That he gets to see Jaebeom like this, that he’s always been able to before anyone else could. Jaebeom at his most foundational--the gloss and the theatrics of the stage washed away, the screams muted, the stage lights gone down. Jinyoung gets Jaebeom like this: just the man and the voice and the thoughts, with only the low lamplight reflecting in the inky black of his hair.

There’s probably a song here, Jinyoung thinks. A melody about the way that desire--that love--burns at its strongest when all you can see is the person right in front of you, showing you themselves without any pretense. Maybe a lyric about the way that the lamplight catches in their hair. A beat that thrums with the same intensity of loving someone so fully that it stops your breath. A tempo that drags in the same measure as spending years carrying the weight of your love around in your chest, but being too afraid to say the words out loud.

But some songs require too much courage and too much honesty to write. So instead, Jinyoung cautiously curves his right arm around the back of the sofa, stretching his reach around Jaebeom’s broad shoulders. Jaebeom looks at him through the fallen fringe of his hair but then leans in, tucking his body into Jinyoung’s own. Even through the thick weave of Jinyoung’s hoody, Jaebeom’s body is a soft glow of heat and it resonates, down to Jinyoung’s bones. Jinyoung curls his fingers around and presses into the softness of Jaebeom’s arm. 

This is the first time that they’ve been able to be alone together in so long. It can be hard sometimes--to find a time when they’re both free, to slip away together. The past few months have been hard: Jinyoung busy with table reads, auditions, and guitar lessons; Jaebeom busy with composing with Offshore. 

And then there’s the distance.

Jaebeom has been quieter these past few months. Ever since they’d returned from tour, he’s been slower to reach out, quieter during meetings, more likely to lean away when one of the members open their arms to him. It leaves Jinyoung adrift. He’s spent the past few years watching Jaebeom unfurl, seeing him open up his heart and mind and body to everyone around him. But something in these last few months had, somehow, shifted. And Jaebeom had closed back up, his walls tightening around him. He’s sunken back into his books and his solitude and his notebooks, leaving Jinyoung out in the dark. 

And all Jinyoung wants to do is turn the lights back on.

Instead, he takes another sip of his tea, letting the hot liquid burn over his tongue. “What have you been up to these last few weeks?” he asks Jaebeom after a moment. “I feel like we haven’t really had the chance to talk recently.”

Jaebeom shrugs. His free hand reaches up to tangle in his hair and the twists through his fingers, looping it around and around. “Not a lot,” he says. “I’ve been reading more. Watching a lot of anime. Sleeping a lot.” Jinyoung smiles at that one. “And I’ve been working on some new music.”

“Oh right.” Jinyoung nods. “Offshore is releasing a new album soon, right?”

Jaebeom’s mouth opens in surprise. “We are,” he says. “I didn’t know you knew.”

Carefully, Jinyoung reaches over and places a hand on Jaebeom’s knee. Jaebeom looks down at Jinyoung’s fingers and then places his own free hand on top, holding him in place.

“What type of friend would I be if I didn’t know?” Jinyoung says. Jaebeom’s skin is warm on top of his own, his palm hot where it was cupping the teacup. “I can’t wait to hear it, Jaebeommie.”

“Do you want to hear it now?” Jaebeom asks. He puts his cup down on the coffee table and then reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants, pulling out his phone. The music playing through the speakers pauses and then mellow guitar chords fill the room. Jaebeom’s voice floats in on top, singing with a muted gentleness that he only seems to save for his side projects.

“I sing on three songs on the album,” Jaebeom says. He looks down at his lap, letting his hair fall into his face. “This one is my favorite.”

Jinyoung closes his eyes and leans back, letting his head rest on the sofa back. 

“Did you just say ‘fuck you’,” Jinyoung says as the song ends. He opens one eye to look at Jaebeom. “On a song?” He smirks at him. “Look at you seizing your creative freedom.”

Jaebeom laughs and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Gotta take it when and where I get it.”

The next song starts and Jinyoung listens to Jaebeom yearn for freedom, for someone to fix him, for someone to detangle his insides. It tugs at Jinyoung, pulling him underwater. 

“I’ve always loved the way you write,” Jinyoung whispers. “You’re the most honest songwriter I know.”

Jaebeom shakes his head, suddenly shy. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Jinyoung straightens up and turns to face Jaebeom. “You put every bit of yourself in your songs. The easy parts, the hard parts. You write like you’re not afraid of anything.”

“But I am afraid,” Jaebeom says. He brings his legs up onto the sofa, crossing them underneath him. He jostles the cat in the process and she meows indignantly before hopping off and running out of the living room. “I’m afraid of so many things, Jinyoung.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . .” Jaebeom looks at Jinyoung, letting his eyes linger on Jinyoung’s face in that same tender and penetrating way that Jinyoung has caught him staring over the past few days when Jaebeom doesn’t think Jinyoung is paying attention. Jinyoung has looked away every time, not trusting that he wasn’t just seeing what he’s always wanted to see, not wanting to fall into a false hope. 

But now, there’s nowhere to look but back at Jaebeom. Nothing to do but to let himself fall into the depth of Jaebeom’s eyes. And for the second time tonight, Jinyoung feels like he’s being tugged underwater.

“Like?” Jinyoung’s voice catches in his throat.

“Like the future,” Jaebeom murmurs, picking up the end of his abandoned thought. He takes his glasses off and sets them on the table. “Like me, sometimes.”

Something about the way that Jaebeom’s voice skips across his vowels makes Jinyoung ask. “Jaebeom . . . are you happy?”

Jaebeom is silent. He bites his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth. 

“I . . .I feel like I keep on asking myself that same question,” he says after a moment. He takes a deep breath and then exhales, long and slow. “Like, ‘am I happy now? Have I done it? Is this what I wanted?’ But . . .” He trails off. He looks Jinyoung in the eye and Jinyoung feels a bolt of heat strike him in the chest, liquid hot and painful. 

Jaebeom coughs into his fist and then starts again. “But now when I ask myself . . . I don’t think I’m happy.” He looks down at his feet, his hair falling in front of his face like a curtain. “I don’t think I am. Happiness is . . . temporary. It comes and it goes. Some days I wake up and . . . yeah. I think about my life and my friends and the members and my parents and . . .I think about you and I feel so fucking _lucky_. That I have all of this. So I feel happy. But then--” Jinyoung reaches over and takes Jaebeom’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together. “Other days I wake up and I don’t feel . . . . I just don’t feel. So--I don’t think I’m happy. At least not now.”

“I’m always going to be here for you,” Jinyoung says. He takes Jaebeom’s other hand and holds them together. “On those days when you’re happy or when happiness feels far away. I’m here.”

“I know.” Jaebeom squeezes his hand back. “It’s. . .not a bad thing. Feeling this way. I feel like I’m more at peace now that I’ve accepted that this is how life works you know? When I know that everything just comes in waves. Life isn’t a constant.”

“It isn’t, but don’t you deserve to _feel_ all the time?” Jinyoung looks at him, takes in the bow of Jaebeom’s lips, the two tiny moles over his eye, the slope of his nose, the silver hoop in his nostril. Jinyoung watches Jaebeom look back at him, sees the way that Jaebeom’s eyes are bright with the reflection of the city night, sees the way that even now, _especially now_ Jaebeom is the most beautiful person he’s ever known. 

“I do,” Jaebeom whispers. “Feel all the time, I mean. I feel you sitting here next to me, I feel the way you make my heart want to jump out of my chest. I feel the way I want you to hold on to me.”

Jinyoung takes a deep breath and then inches closer, close enough that his knee presses into Jaebeom’s own. He reaches over, putting his arm around Jaebeom and pulling him in. Jaebeom turns to face him, his expression open and unreadable.

“Jaebeom,” Jinyoung says. “Why did you invite me over?”

“Because.” 

“Jaebeom.”

“Because you gave me shit for not having you over,” Jaebeom says. “And I . . . Jinyoung. You said I’m an honest writer. I think I wanted to finally . . . be honest with you. Be honest with me.”

Jinyoung has the words for everything. He knows what to say in difficult moments, he knows what to say when he’s afraid, when he’s tired, when he’s angry. But he doesn’t have words for the way it feels when Jaebeom leans in and kisses him sweet and full on the mouth.

Jinyoung has known Jaebeom for almost half his life. He met Jaebeom when they were both 15 and full of hope and nervous energy; he fought with him when they were both too hot headed to reason, when Jaebeom was skittish and unsure of himself, when Jinyoung was yearning for something he didn’t know the words for; he cried with Jaebeom when their tiny experiment felt like it was ending, when no one else could understand how completely his heart had broken; they’d regained their footing together, surrounded by five others, each of them holding the other up. And Jinyoung had written songs with Jaebeom, for Jaebeom. And Jaebeom had shown him all of his hardest and softest and imperfect parts and written with Jinyoung, for Jinyoung too. Somewhere in this mess and tangle of half a lifetime, Jinyoung had fallen in love with Jaebeom. And somehow, Jaebeom had looked at him with every last bit of trust in his eyes and loved Jinyoung back.

Jinyoung kisses him back with all of the softness that he has, with all of the softness that he knows Jaebeom deserves. It’s not a perfect kiss, not at all, but Jaebeom sighs into it, breathing warmth and love and life into Jinyoung’s mouth. It feels like Jinyoung is finally waking up. It’s not perfect, but it’s what Jinyoung has always wanted. And something tells him that it’s what Jaebeom has always wanted too. Maybe there’s a song for this too.

They break apart with a gasp, their breaths mingling.

“It’s ok to be afraid, Jaebeom,” Jinyoung whispers into the space between them. “But don’t think you have to be afraid alone. I’m here. If you want me, ever.”

“I always want you.” Jaebeom squeezes their hands where they’re joined together. “Isn’t it obvious how much I do?”

“Then let me be there for you. If you feel alone, if you feel scared, if you feel like you don’t feel at all . . . just reach out for me, ok? I can’t promise that I’ll be perfect all the time but I can be there.”

“You always make me feel,” Jaebeom says. “When we did Verse 2 together . . . I felt so _much_ then. I was happy, then. I loved every bit of it. It was like we got a do-over, you know?”

Jinyoung smiles at him. “Yeah. I know. I felt that way too. I miss that. I miss writing with you, hyung.”

“Would you do it again?” Jaebeom asks.

“Write with you?”

“Yes.” Jaebeom breathes out. He says it like he’s hoping, like it’s a prayer.

Jinyoung feels his insides melt and he nods.

“There’s no one else I’d rather write with, Jaebeom.”

Jaebeom blinks and then smiles again. He presses his face into the crook of Jinyoung neck, leaving a ghost of a kiss against his neck. He leans back and then picks up a notebook and a pen from where they’re laying on the coffee table. He hands them to Jinyoung.

Jinyoung uncaps the pen with his teeth. He flips to a blank page and he begins.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> fingers crossed for verse 3.  
> the majority of Jaebeom's bit on happiness is transcribed/adapted from [this](https://twitter.com/_defbeom/status/1258671771647082496)  
> 2019 vlive. 
> 
> you can always find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/intensencounter) and [curiouscat](https://t.co/seZWbhCIjJ?amp=1)!


End file.
